"8 Million Strong and Voting!" Small business is the heart beat of the United States economy. This blog searches for issues and answers to helping small business survive and thrive in California and the United States.

Monday, February 28, 2011

The new SBA 504 Debt Refinance Program allows small businesses that have conventional commercial real estate loans on their facilities that are coming due in the next several years to utilize the SBA 504 program to refinance those loans. The program is designed to assist small businesses that have seen a decline in the value of their commercial properties through no fault of their own and are unable to refinance through conventional means..

Current Guidelines include

• Loans being refinanced must be maturing on or before December 31, 2012 and for eligible 504 purposes (land, building, large equipment). At a later date SBA may extend this date as well as qualify loans that can demonstrate a strong need in other ways

• Loans being refinanced must have been current for last 12 months

• Debt must have been incurred not less than 2 years prior to the application date

• Business must be at least 2 years old at time of application

I recognize this won’t apply to most of you but those where it does apply it could be significant.

Small Business California will be monitoring the number of loans made and will be working to expand the eligibility beyond 2012.

Regulations are a big issue for small business. Small Business California has established a regulatory committee and are looking to hear about regulations that are burdensome and accomplish little or nothing.

Please let me know if you are aware of any of these. I just came across a regulation which impacts my industry.

Please see below what insurance agents and brokers are required to do if they take your driver’s license number to provide you quotes on automobile insurance. The DMV is now auditing agents and brokers for this information.

• What privacy policies has the organization established with respect to the collection, use, and retention of DMV information?

• Do you have a written information security program or policy? If yes, please provide a copy of the policy.

• Identify the locations, systems, and methods for storing, processing, transmitting, and disposing of DMV information

• Please describe your procedures in the event of a security breach.

• How are employees with access to DMV information trained in privacy protection?

• Do you maintain an Information Security Statement (DMV Form INF 1128) for each employee authorized to access DMV records (If yes, please provide us with copies of these statements).

• Do you have a list of inactive or terminated employees that had access? (If applicable, please provide us with a copy of this listing).

• How many computer terminals are capable of making inquiries? Where are they located? Are the terminals secured when unattended? Explain how they are secured.

• Your terminals that access DMV records should display a “warning banner” containing some variation of the following admonishment: “WARNING: Unauthorized access or misuse of data may result in adverse action and/or criminal prosecution.” Does this banner display?

• How often are passwords required to be changed? How are password changes initiated?

The questionnaire further requires the agency to provide a copy of the agency’s Requesters Information Security Program or Policy, Information Security Statements for the past two years, a list of inactive or terminated employees, a list of current authorized users, a list of current user terminals, and an inquiry log for inquiries processed in April 2008.

Tuesday, February 22, 2011

Please see below information about the Pre-Existing Condition Insurance Program and the Consumer Assistance Program being presented Thursday in Sacramento by Senior Administration Officials. These are important parts of the Federal Insurance reform.

We are pleased to invite you to an informative briefing by Senior Administration Officials on the Pre-Existing Condition Insurance Program (PCIP) and the Consumer Assistance Program (CAP), implemented through the Affordable Care Act and aimed to help Californians.________________________________________U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), Region IX,The California Department of Managed Health CareThe California Managed Risk Medical Insurance Boardand the Office of the Insurance Commissioner

________________________________________Join Us To Learn About Two New Programs for California Residents -- The Pre-Existing Condition Insurance Plan and the Consumer Assistance Program

Two new federal programs—the Pre-Existing Condition Insurance Plan and the Consumer Assistance Program—have been rolled out over the past year across the nation. Both programs are aimed at helping California residents.

The Pre-Existing Condition Insurance Plan is a health coverage option for people who have been locked out of the health insurance market because of a pre-existing condition. It provides people with a pre-existing condition the same coverage that a healthy person receives, and at the same price! The Consumer Assistance Program offers resources to States and Territories to educate consumers about their health coverage options and ensure their access to accurate information.

Please join us for a meeting to learn more about both of these exciting new programs! Attached is a flyer with information about the event to post or forward to your network.

We appreciate your time and participation, and hope you will RSVP to Eric Alborg at eric.alborg@hhs.gov or call (415) 437-8500.

Wednesday, February 16, 2011

Yesterday I got word from Congressman Lungren's office that HR 4 repealing the 1099 requirement in the health bill will be marked up February 17th in the Ways and Means Committee.

It is expected that Chairman Camp[R] will introduce an amendment to add an offset. The offset will be future overpayments in subsidies under the health law. It is not clear how the Democratic House members will respond to this.

We will be closing our small business survey after today. If you haven’t completed it please go to www.smallbusinesscalifornia.org

For those of you in San Francisco there will be a reception for the new Supervisors February 17th at the Old Mint at 5th and Mission.

This event will be from 6PM to 8PM and it is expected that Supervisors Farrell,Kim.Wiener and Cohen will be in attendance.

The event will be co hosted by the SF Small Business Network, Council of District Merchants and the Small Business Advocates.

To RSVP go to execdirector@sfsbn.org. There is no cost to attend.

Please see below an email I received from a small business owner . There is something wrong when a fine for a violation which results in death is less than some minor violations.

Hi Scott:

Since you deal with so many people in leadership positions, I thought I would pass this along to you.

I saw in the paper two days ago that the San Francisco zoo was fined $1,875 by the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture for having a sub-standard tiger enclosure that resulted in the mauling death of one person and injuries to two others.

I own a chain of franchised hair salons. I recently had a visit from the State Board of Cosmetology that resulted in a fine of $2,100 in just one location for a variety of alleged offenses including pieces of tissue on the bathroom floor, license in the wrong location etc.

$1,875 for an infraction that resulted in death and injury vs. $2,100 for borderline silly infractions.

Monday, February 14, 2011

Without going into the details of the bill it appears it would eliminate the tax credits under the new health law and could eliminate the deduction for employer sponsored health insurance.

In fairness to Mr Smith he says it won’t eliminate the deduction but law professors have said it was unclear.

There are 205 cosponsors and it appears it will pass in the House but will have problems in the Senate and certainly would be vetoed by the President.

If you want to learn more about the bill and whether your Congressman is a cosponsor go to www.thomas.gov

Once a year I ask small business people to give me the names of people in government that have helped small businesses. This can be an elected official or a government employee. If you send me their names and what they have done I will send a thank you letter from Small Business California. I will include your name in the thank you.

Wednesday will be the last day of Small Business California’s survey. We have over 1300 responses so far. If you haven’t completed the survey go to www.smallbusinesscalifornia.org

Thank you to all that have completed. The results will be on our website the end of the week.

Friday, February 11, 2011

I received this email from Winslow yesterday. As you all will recall Small Business California requested that the Office of Advocacy do a study of small business lending. This is the study that has been done.

Below you will see a link to report. I try not to send attachments in this email so if you would like a more complete summary of the results please let me know and I will send it to you.

Jere, ScottAttached are copies of the full report, research summary, and news release for Small Business Lending in the United States, 2009-2010. On the web, the full report just went live at http://www.sba.gov/content/banking-study-2010-0.

A one-paragraph summary is below. Hope this helps with your distribution to your key contacts!

The Office of Advocacy’s latest study of Small Business Lending in the United States, 2009-2010 finds that while lending to small firms by U.S. financial institutions continued to decline, it began to stabilize in some loan size categories over the most recent period. In the smallest business loans under $100,000 lending was down by 1 percent in 2009-2010, compared with a 5.5 percent drop in 2008-2009, and real estate loans accounted for the entire decline, as small commercial and industrial loans increased.

As the economy improves, this study, through its state-by-state display of lender performance, can help both small business borrowers and lending institutions see where small firms are beginning to find the capital they need. The study uses data reported by financial institutions to their regulatory agencies to compile state rankings of these institutions with respect to their small business lending. Two types of reports are used: Consolidated Reports of Condition and Income (Call Reports) and Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) reports. (The rankings are unrelated to banks’ status with respect to Small Business Administration lending programs.) The full report is available on the Office of Advocacy website at www.sba.gov/advocacy.

Yesterday I received a request from the LA Times to find small business owners who are facing an upcoming [or currently due] balloon payment on their commercial buildings. Sharon is looking for people who would benefit by the provision in the Small Business Jobs bill that allows 504 refinancing.

Unfortunately the regulations to allow this have not been put in place creating problems for many small business owners. Sharon is on deadline so please respond as soon as possible. (Sharon.Bernstein@latimes.com)

We are now up to 1200 responses on our survey. Thank you to those that have completed the survey and if you have not please go to www.smallbusinesscalifornia.org. It will take about 8 minutes.

Thursday, February 03, 2011

The Senate voted 81 to 17 to repeal the 1099 requirement put forth in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. The bill was introduced by Senator Debbie Stubenow [D-Mich] and is paid for by requiring the Office of Management and Budget to find funding in unspent but appropriated funds.

It now goes to the House where another bill by Congressman Dan Lungren [HR 4] would also repeal the requirement. This bill however does not have any funding provisions.

I would expect that the Stubenow bill will prevail.

Small Business California and the National Small Business Association has fought hard for this repeal and will continue to do so in the House.

I received an email from Djibril in state Senator Corbett’s Office regarding legislation being introduced by the Senator to establish a voluntary program allowing companies to seek a Made In California label. See below. Do you support this? What are your ideas on how this should be drafted.

It should be noted that past efforts to do this have been opposed by the state Chamber and I would expect they will also oppose this.

------------------------------

Hello Scott,

The idea would be to establish a voluntary program allowing companies to seek a “Made in California” label. The state of California would sanction this label and promote as part of its ongoing effort to promote to the Golden State.

As we drafting this legislation, two example came to mind, “Made in USA” and the “California Grown” program. The “Made in USA” definition call for all or virtually all significant parts” to be manufactured in the United States of America. The California Grown programs on the other had calls for 85% to have been grown in California.

I would be interested in knowing what of these model be better suited for California small businesses to participate. Our goal is to focus on the assembly in California not so much on the source of the parts.

This effort would create a public/private partnership, with funding from the participating companies and the State of California. Those resources would be used to create and implement a multifaceted marketing campaign that combines advertising and public outreach, promotions and web pages, point of sale activities and public events.

The marketing component of this effort has a simple objective: to increase demand for and sales of local products and companies . It would enable consumers to make choices and that choosing California made products is good for them, for the state’s economy and for the future of California.

I was recently appointed to the Board of the Insure the Uninsured Project. This is a very influential group on health policy in California. The Executive Director is Lucien Wulsin who I have worked with for close to 20 years. Lucian has been a great friend of small business and was responsible ,while working for Assemblyman Burt Margolan, for the passage of AB 1672 .

AB1672 created the Health Insurance Program of California which was a purchasing pool for small business. The bill also provided for small businesses with between 2 and 50 employees the ability to purchase health insurance regardless of preexisting conditions for them and their employees. The companies are only allowed to surcharge those policies 10% .

Small Business California is fighting hard to have Lucian appointed to the state insurance Exchange. He is being considered by the Speaker.

For information about Insure the Uninsured Project go to www.itup.org. It is a wealth of information about what is going on in the health arena.

About Me

Small Business California is a proactive, non-partisan business advocate whose only agenda is the well being of California’s 3.2 million small businesses. Working for all small businesses for a better business environment, SB-Cal is responsive to the needs of small business owners.
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